But the old girl decided to kick me in the nuts on last time.. These 2 capscrews, either side are both frozen SOLID, and the heads have rounded off, the Aluminium Yamaha used for these must been made from recycled slag.

I've sprayed some CRC onto them, try again tomorrow. If all else fails it's back to the Australian Spanner - otherwise known as an angle grinder. Take the heads off and deal with them that way. Not elegant, but effective.

I work on old cars, ie. 70, 80, 90 years old, many haven't been touched for decades and many have been poorly stored.

Of all my bolt freeing tricks, my favourite is a solid belt, or several, with a big hammer. It breaks the seal, and in the case of a philips head or hex head it closes up the head a bit and makes the tool a tighter fit. My next favourite is the oxy torch if the location allows you to get a lot of heat into the bolt fairly quickly.

Another thing that works on those button head hex bolts is the short allen keys that fit on your socket set, takes all the spring out of the tool, and repeatedly hit it with a hammer while applying force on the socket bar.

Ribbert said, "Of all my bolt freeing tricks, my favourite is a solid belt, or several, with a big hammer. It breaks the seal, and in the case of a philips head or hex head it closes up head a bit and makes the tool a tighter fit. My next favourite is the oxy torch if the location allows you to get a lot of heat into the bolt fairly quickly.

Another thing that works on those button head hex bolts is the short allen keys that fit on your socket set, takes all the spring out of the tool, and repeatedly hit it with a hammer while applying force on the socket bar."

Noel,

Those are all good suggestions, but sometimes they just don't work. :-(I tried them all (except the oxy) on the bolts holding the right footplate to the bike so I could replace the rear brake switch. 2 of the 3 rounded the socket and I ended up drilling and replacing them. Took me 3 hrs to complete a (should have been) 5 min job.

Heat is the answer. Doesn't need to be oxy hot, or even map hot. Propane or butane is fine. A really good heat gun could maybe even swing it (wouldn't know, don't own one). Heat it up like you mean it, and the threadlock turns to dust.

My rule of thumb is I don't drill anything unless I can get it clamped in a vise and ensure things are dead square before removing metal. Means I reach for a torch pretty regularly, but I've stopped screwing things up nearly as bad as I once did.

Put a little heat to the bolts with a little propane torch. Then use a chisel and your favorite hammer. Go straight into the bolt head with chisel and give it a good wrap a couple times. Enough to put a groove on one side of the bolt head. Then if you have a dull chisel use it, place dull chesil at a 30 to 45 degree angle on bolt head groove. Give it a good wrap several times to see If that helps loosen the bolts. Works 80% of the time for me.

Another good way of heating is by welding a nut or short bolt to the head of the bolt your'e trying to loosen. Using a small gauge welding electrode makes the job a lot easier. I would also use a stainless steel electrode, as this gives a stronger weld for its size compared to mild steel. Pete.

thats enough heat got get most things warm enough to soak up some wd40 as it cools.

Propane unfortunately is not hot enough or fast enough and the heat dissipates into the surrounding metal at the much the same rate as it goes into the bolt.

The idea is to heat the bolt at a much faster rate than the surrounding metal causing it to expand then contract as it cools, breaking the lock but it only works with the serious sort of heat you get with oxy.

I have tried a propane torch in the field and found it to be about as effective as a magnifying glass in the sun for this purpose.

thats enough heat got get most things warm enough to soak up some wd40 as it cools.

Propane unfortunately is not hot enough or fast enough and the heat dissipates into the surrounding metal at the much the same rate as it goes into the bolt.

The idea is to heat the bolt at a much faster rate than the surrounding metal causing it to expand then contract as it cools, breaking the lock but it only works with the serious sort of heat you get with oxy.

I have tried a propane torch in the field and found it to be about as effective as a magnifying glass in the sun for this purpose.

Noel

If you are just fighting the thread lock then any heat will help soften it. Impact drivers/guns are my first choice and have yet to let me down get stubborn stuff loose.

Logged

The glass is not half full, it was engineered with a 2X safety factor.

I don't have access to any heat source at home, so I'll rely on my proper engineering skills (NZ Certificate in Beating and Bashing, Level 4) No seriously, I'll get it out. Remove the head, drill the bolt and try an Ezy-out. If the thread gets damaged I'll helicoil it. I'm confident enough in my manual dexterity that I can drill a hole straight. It's what I do all day, after all. This is what i run at work, a Haas VF3 milling machine with an optional 4th axis - set up at the moment, I'm making cutterheads for sawmills at the moment.

So while it was running this morning I cleaned up the sprocket cover and pulled apart the clutch slave and cleaned that out. Anybody know the reason for the steel insert on the inside of the sprocket cover? my best guess is either to stop a runaway sprocket chewing out thru the cover into my foot, or some sort of vibration damper.

I did rebuild this slave about 5000 km ago so it looks ok. Swiped the bore and piston with some 800grit, cleaned the seals back out and reassembled, good to go.

I also pulled the rear caliper apart. Holy jesus those pistons where stuck in there good. The outer piston on the side where the brake line goes in was so solid I had to bolt it to my bench, and get a grease nipple and use our portable hypraulic unit to get it out. Took 150PSI on the guage before it moved.Seals were full of shit, pistons had a thick build up of crunk. I imagine my rear brake is going to feel a bit better now.

thats enough heat got get most things warm enough to soak up some wd40 as it cools.

Propane unfortunately is not hot enough or fast enough and the heat dissipates into the surrounding metal at the much the same rate as it goes into the bolt.

The idea is to heat the bolt at a much faster rate than the surrounding metal causing it to expand then contract as it cools, breaking the lock but it only works with the serious sort of heat you get with oxy.

I have tried a propane torch in the field and found it to be about as effective as a magnifying glass in the sun for this purpose.

Noel

Noel,

NSW propane kicks Victroian propane's ass any day of the week

but when its all you got its all you got and so far it's worked for me

Another hour or so after work today.. Sorry if this is boring you all stupid but it's as much to keep me going than anything else..

Rear wheel out..

Removed the dog-bones and lower suspension shock joint assembly. There appears to be some sort of attachment or adjustment through on the far left that goes through to the bottom of motor - it's so crusty under there it's hard to say..You can see it just beside the chain. Anybody confirm or deny that?

Swing arm and chain out. I cleaned the swing arm bearings out about 1000km ago so it was good to see all the grease still fresh and clean in there. I'll take it all into work and clean it all back out again though.

Front engine mounts removed. Have to service these while they are out. I'll add in the grease nipples while I'm there. She's a bit vibratey around 3000rpm so this should fix that.

Those frozen capscrews aren't shifting after some more beating and CRC so it's on to plan B, Ezy-out.